2,000 Japan public servants work 80 or more hours overtime
PTI | 02:07 PM,Jul 29,2010Tokyo, Jul 29 (Kyodo) Over 2,000 public servants in Japan are estimated to work 80 or more hours overtime a month, a level deemed as a key threshold in triggering death from overwork, a survey conducted by a labour union representing civil servants stated. According to the survey conducted by 10,000-strong union of public servants who work in Kasumigaseki, Tokyo's bureaucratic center, 6.3 per cent of the 3,000 government officials, whose view were taken, said their monthly overtime hours averaged 80 or more. Union officials said the figure corresponds to over 2,000 bureaucrats working such long overtime overall, as a total of 34,000 people work at ministries and agencies in Kasumigaseki. Among those reporting 80 or more hours of overtime, around 22 per cent said they "currently feel the danger of death from overwork" and around 36 per cent said they had ''felt the danger in the past." In the survey, conducted recently, average overtime stood at 32.8 hours per month, down 3.5 hours from the previous survey last year. Officials at the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's divisions related to labour policy were found to be working the longest overtime of 73.4 hours per month, up from 66.3 in the previous survey. A union official attributed the increase to "extra work on holidays, which grew in parallel to more top-down instructions to bureaucrats from the three top parliamentary officials" including health minister Akira Nagatsuma. (Kyodo) SAK
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